Without connections to wider electrical grids, communities in the remote, rural Arctic depend on diesel generators for power—which makes electricity “ten times more expensive” than in the rest of Canada or the United States, said Martha Lenio of the World Wildlife Fund-Canada Arctic Team during a recent Wilson Center Ground Truth Briefing. In addition, spilled diesel “can harm wildlife, impact food and water security, and compromise permafrost integrity,” said Lenio. These challenges have led some communities in the Arctic to seek cheaper, safer, and more innovative energy solutions, said panelists during the briefing organized by the Wilson Center’s Polar Initiative and Canada Institute.

“This is a woman who did exactly what she was supposed to do; she did exactly what we encourage pregnant women to do,” said Amy Dempsey of the Population Council at a recent Wilson Center event on World Preeclampsia Day. The Ethiopian woman was suffering from preeclampsia—a preventable condition—but like many pregnant women in low- and middle-income countries, she did not receive the treatment needed to stop it. “Pregnancy was the first time she had ever stepped foot in a health facility,” said Dempsey.

“Climate is unquestionably linked to armed conflict,” says Halvard Buhaug, Research Professor at the Peace Research Institute Oslo, in the latest Wilson Center podcast.

“If we produce a map of the world with locations of ongoing and recently entered armed conflicts, and we superimpose on that map different climate zones or climatic regions, we would very easily see a distinct clustering pattern of armed conflicts in warmer climates.”

Intense drought in South Africa’s Western Cape Province has led the world-renowned city of Cape Town to the brink of “Day Zero”—the date at which residents would be forced to collect strictly rationed water supplies from shared distribution taps. Water conservation efforts have so far prevented a massive water shutdown, but the city’s rapid population growth and reliance on surface water dams makes it particularly vulnerable to lower precipitation levels.